ADELINE
Kaiser wins.
The three rounds. He wins.
He absolutely destroyed the Finisher. He stands in a puddle of blood, Archange unconscious on the ground behind him, just a cut on his eyebrow and lip, his believers going completely insane.
"Lord Kaiser! Lord Kaiser! Lord Kaiser!" They sing in unison, over and over again. Lord Kaiser. Not a single one of them dares to say something other than those two words, except Dawn and I who keep our lips shut. Alexander is talking to the referee and I think someone is calling an ambulance to evacuate Archange. As for Kaiser, well Lord Kaiser, he is staring at me, a smirk pulling his lips as he wipes the blood on them with his thumb. He's devastating. A single lock of hair crosses his forehead, not a crease on his face, a thin layer of sweat covers his flesh, his green eyes darkening by the second the more he looks at me. He throws a white towel on his shoulder, never breaking our contact.
He won. I lost.
He knows it, we both do. He gives me a wink of his green eyes and then turns to his public, to his fans, to his believers, and raises a simple fist making them go feral. Like screaming at the top of their lungs kind of feral. It's quite humiliating for the Shades. A hundred people praising the opponent they just lost against. They don't take a break to breathe, I'm not even sure they blink. They only stare at Kaiser like they would an altar, no one else, it's scary.
"What's up with their chants?" I ask Dawn, looking away from the dark man claiming his bloody glory.
"It's weird, really. Alexander have been trying to talk Kaiser out of this but his pride is too big to make him stop, it's like a fucking cult. They pray to him, they plead to him, they go to him for advice, they confess to him, they think of him as a divinity when truly he's just a pretentious dick. Every time he fights, he wins, they chant his victory no matter how messy and fucked it is." She shakes her head in disapproval, she must have seen things like that going on for a little while now. It is weird. Right at the end of her explanation something else happens. One by one they get on one knee, then the other, kneeling for Kaiser like they would for their Emperor.
Honestly I'm not surprised. He fits in every criteria of the Emperor. I suspected it and the Bauer are so loyal to him they wouldn't do that for anybody else. They would accuse them of betrayal if they did.
He loves it. I can tell how pleased he is. They're giving him exactly what he wants; Power.
Dawn drops her head on my shoulder, almost falling asleep to the sound of their chants, she wraps her arms around my waist and sighs heavily. "Okay, time to go." She says once they become quieter. She proposed to me to sleep at her house and I can't. I have to sleep in my dorm. They don't even know I've been sleeping somewhere else, and if they do they'll tell Mom and I can't let that happen. She would freak out.
A restless night hurts less than her.
I don't mind staying awake from dusk until dawn if it means staying a call away from her.
"I'll sleep in my dorm tonight, darling, it's already been a week and I have exams in a few days." I tell her walking to the exit of L'Arène, apart from the Shades we're only one leaving. My arm sits on her shoulders while she nods. "Your call, Adie."
We reach the main empty corridor that leads to the door, none of us talks, watching a fight is exhausting. Especially when you're sick in the stomach for worrying about a punch hurting the man who won't leave you alone. I wish I wasn't. I wish I didn't care. But I do. I care a lot. I care about everyone. And it doesn't please me when I see someone getting beaten up in front of an audience.
I will never understand how they can enjoy watching someone else get hurt.
"Adeline." A deep and strong voice calls my name, stopping me in my steps, Dawn's warmth leaves me and I'm suddenly freezing. A tall dark figure blocks every light in my way, the smell of blood becoming overwhelming to me. How much I hate that liquid. It's sickening. It raises bills all the way up to my mouth, threatening me to throw it up.
There's blood everywhere. On my body. In my mouth. Between my thighs. On the floor. Everywhere. It's the only thing I can smell. The rust isn't even stronger than that. It makes my head spin. I can't see straight.
I've been in the basement for too long, maybe I'm just losing any ounce of sanity I had left. I don't remember why or when she put me here in the first place. My wrists are sore and bruised because of those heavy chains.
"Please. I'm sorry." I just want to be out. I just want to see the sun. I've lost count of the hours. I don't even know what day it is. I just want to be out of there. "I already begged for forgiveness, there's nothing more I can do. Please." I try again, my mouth wet with blood but no saliva. When was the last time I drank water? I don't know. I don't know I don't know. Why can't I remember anything?! What is wrong with me, Jesus?
I would cry if my body wasn't dehydrated already. She said she would feed me if I behaved. I did. I didn't scream this time, I stayed still, I let her do it. I just want a sip of water. That's all.
"Please, I'm starving. I won't say anything, I swear, Mom, please." I know I'm wasting my time. She has never listened to my pleas. She always gets me out when I'm passed out and she has to carry me outside the basement.
She's deaf when it comes to my screams.
She holds my leg in place, not even answering me, I'm not strong enough to fight her anymore. She can cut my heart out if it'll bring her peace.
"He died for our sins, my baby, the least you can do is bleed for yours." And she presses the blade of her knife into my flesh. More blood. Always more blood.
"Angel." That deep voice snaps me back into reality.
L'Arène.
A locker.
Kaiser.
Bet.
Date.
No basement.
No blood.
Not mine at least.
Not her.
"Hm?" Two strong hands hold me in place, one on my neck, the other on my lower back. Kaiser is still half naked, a frown pulling his brows together and he's close — so close. I can smell him everywhere.
Leather. Smoke. Rain. Blood.
It takes me a couple of seconds to notice my shaky hands, my heavy breathing, the dizziness, and the tears rolling down my cheeks. It takes a moment for the panic to settle in. My heart beats are so strong, I can't believe they're mine. I will die if it doesn't slow down soon, it'll explode.
Kaiser must see how conflicted I am because the frown doesn't leave his brows and he lowers his second hand to my waist to lift me from the ground. I try to look around but the salty water coming out of my eyes is making it impossible for me to make sense of what is happening around me.
Under the constant buzzing noise ringing in my ears, I can hear the sound of a door opening, then closing. I can hear Kaiser's even breathing compared to my panicked one. I can hear people becoming quieter when we enter wherever we are.
A few moments later we're sitting. Him on a couch, me on his lap. I'm drowning in panic and his warmth keeps me breathing.
"What happened?" He finally breaks the silence, his arm wrapped around my waist, the tip of his fingers plays with the ends of my long hair and the other keeps my knee from bouncing. But none of it matters, his lips are still painted red and a drop of blood is running down the side of his head, I can taste it on my tongue just like I could a few years ago.
"You're bleeding." I point out, unable to look away from his bleeding eyebrow. He hasn't tried to stop it, he doesn't look like he cares. A low chuckle shakes his chest, as if he didn't know why I was talking about that.
"I know that, little angel. I know what happened to me, but what happened to you?" Kaiser asks again, his hand leaves my knee to put a lock of hair behind my ear, he brushes the back of his index all the way down to my neck, then to my covered arm and back on my knee — higher this time. Yet, I don't back away from his touch this time, I don't take his hands off, I can't think about anything else but the blood.
"You're bleeding." My lips work on their own, my mind clearly not following.
"Does it bother you?" I nod. He tilts his jaw, his right eye twitching, one, two, three times before it stops. He nods back, he probably understands that his blood is the reason why my memories keep crawling back to me. I wish it didn't affect me so much, I wish I wasn't so vulnerable about simple things. But I am. I am and it's pathetic.
"Fifty-six, bring me a towel, now." He orders a man walking behind him, he's huge. Much bigger than Kaiser, he could crush him for speaking to him like a dog but he obeys and barely a minute later Kaiser has a white towel offered to him in a silver plate. Literally.
The man I'm sitting on grabs the towel without a word of acknowledgement and proceeds to wipe the blood off his eyebrow and the side of his head. "Is it better, little angel?" He whispers, his skin almost perfectly cleaned. I shake my head, unable to utter a word. There's still a drop on the corner of his lip and a little higher than his brow, my hands itch to clean it up, just a bit more and he'll be free of this disgusting liquid and me of my panic.
"Would you mind?" He hands me the clean side of the towel for me to take and I do. My shaking hand takes a hold of the white tissue before lifting it to his face, I grab his jaw between my fingers to keep him from moving. I take a shy breath before pressing the towel on his flesh. I'm precise and careful, I used to do it a lot with my own dirtied body, although I was rougher and angrier.
My thumb brushes his lower lip as I wipe the blood away, I can sense his green eyes burning my face, he's watching me with such intensity it makes me feel weird inside. I move to the brow and right then, I dare to cross his gaze, deep and dark and scary. His hold on my thigh and waist tightens the second my bottom lip gets stuck between my teeth. I can't look away. His right eye is twitching again, I wonder what it means exactly.
Kaiser brings me closer to his shirtless torso, and I can't breathe. I've never felt this way before tonight. I've never been close enough to a man to feel it actually. The pool of heat in my lower stomach, my breathing speeding up —and not from fear, my thigh clenching on their own accord and the goosebumps on my flesh. My body isn't accommodated to this.
"Thank you, little angel." He whispers, he presses his clean lips on my cheek and drops his head to my neck like he seems to like it.
"You smell so fucking good, Adeline." Kaiser mutters, spreading shivers all the way down my spine. I like the way he says my name, it rolls perfectly on his tongue. His lips are chasing stars on my skin with soft kisses, it's not as odd as I thought it would be. There's something comforting in it. Mom described a man's touch as a disease but right now, it feels like a cure.
He caresses my thigh through my jeans, writing or drawing something again, he does it again and again and again. And I take a second to figure out what he's doing, three lines then three again, not in the same direction, the eleventh time he does it I get it. Two letters. K and H.
"Why are you drawing your initials on me?" I say, my hand finding a way to his hair to play with the brown locks. I don't know why I'm doing it, it didn't seem fair for him to have his hands on me and mine by my side. The other sits on his arm wrapped around my waist.
"I'm not sure you'd like the answer, angel." He says against my neck, he's right, I probably won't like it. So instead of pushing it I take a look at my surroundings, which I haven't done at all. It's a room, sort of a backstage room, the red couch we're sitting on is in the middle, a fridge in a corner and a dressing on the other side facing it. I know there's a mirror behind me that takes up the whole wall and a couple of chairs in front of it. I wonder what we look like, a fully clothed woman and a half naked man in each other's arms, feeding on the comfort of the other, I wonder what view Kaiser has of us.
I also wonder what the heck am I doing.
I shouldn't be in his arms, let alone touch him, I shouldn't be so near him, I shouldn't get drunk on his scent and forget who he is and who I am.
"I have to go." I clear my throat, ready to get off his lap, he doesn't leave my neck and my thigh and my waist. He doesn't move at all.
"Your dorm is already closed." He points out, obviously annoyed by my change of mood, I glance at the clock on the wall to read ten pm. Crap.
"I'll go with Dawn."
"She already left with Xander." Crap. She would lose it if she knew what is happening right now. He finally raises his head to look at me, a satisfied smile curling his lips, he plays with my hair again as I lower my hand to rest it on his bare shoulder.
"Sleep at the Mansion." Kaiser proposes and I instantly freeze. As if. I am not setting a foot in this house ever again.
"No." I shake my head. "I don't have the best memories in your home, Kaiser, last time I was there someone spiked my drink and I was assaulted by your brother." His calloused hands tighten on me, his body slowly tensing, from his arms to his jaw and even the muscles of his thigh are tensed beneath me. Perhaps he forgot what had happened. I didn't.
"Spiked your drink?" He asks, I said what I said. I don't drink much but enough not to pass out after two small beers. I never pass out from alcohol. It's not me. It doesn't matter anyway, I don't remember who did it or why. I don't like the idea of being unconscious and helpless in a stranger house but I've survived worse. Awake and helpless in my home.
"Yeah, I came to that conclusion when I passed out after two beers." I shrug, it's not like he could do anything about it anyway. What is done is done. He offers me a tight shake of his head, if I look long enough at his eyes I can see how hard he's trying to keep it from convulsing.
"Azrel won't be here. He has to do something for Alexander."
"I'll be in trouble with my school."
"I'll take care of it."
"What if I lose my scholarship?"
"You won't."
"I have to take a shower and I don't have any spare clothes on me."
"You'll borrow mine." Crap. The man does have an answer to everything. I sigh and still shake my head. Spending the night at the Empire Mansion with Kaiser, a man who just sent another one to the ER, is what my mom warned me against before I leave for Redbriar. She would destroy everything I have here if she found out.
"I don't think it's a good idea."
He takes his hand off of me and stares deep in my eyes, it feels like he's peeling the layers to access my soul, it feels like he can see every twisted and sick part of me. I don't like it.
"I won't try anything, angel, unless you want me to." He promises. It brings me a sense of safety, and the look he gives me makes me want to say yes to anything he would ask. I shouldn't. I truly really shouldn't.
But I give in and accept to spend the night at his house.